Five Alumni Competing in PyeongChang Winter Games

Five Northwood School alumni will compete in the XXIII Winter Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea. Two athletes, Andrew Weibrecht ’03 and Tony Granato ’83, are participating in their third Olympic Games, while Kevin Drury ’06, Mike Testwuide ’05, and Will Rhoads ’13 are first-time Olympians.

Here’s a look at each competitor and how they achieved their Winter Olympic dreams.

Andrew Weibrecht was born and raised in Lake Placid, and fell in love with skiing at an early age, nurtured by the surrounding olympic environment. He races in all 5 slalom disciplines, but specializes in Downhill racing and Super G, with a main focus on super G. He came to Northwood school in the 1999-2000 year for Alpine skiing, and attended until 2002. Former headmaster Ed Good had nothing but positive remarks about him, stating to the Lake Placid News he’s “very proud of the way in which [Andrew] conducts himself in the world. He’s a great ambassador for the North Country and a great ambassador for his family and the school, and we couldn’t be more proud of him.”

In 2002 He continued to be tutored by Northwood teachers, though left for the Winter Sports School in Park City, Utah, where he continued his skiing career and graduated 2003. Only three years later, he debuted in his first World Cup in November 30, 2006, then became a full time competitor in 2008. He scored 10th in the ‘08 season, but was injured in the 2011 season and had shoulder surgery. In the December of that year he injured his other shoulder after 5 races, but came back to compete in ‘12 season where he placed 10th, then improved to 7th in 2014. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 2015, in the same year placing 10th and 5th twice in both Downhill and Super G. In 2016, He placed 5th three times as well as third and second. In total, he has 11 top tens and two podium finishes in World Cups. He competed in the ‘09, ‘03, and ‘15 World Championships, where he placed 39th and 20th in Super G and 22nd and 9th in Downhill. In 2010, he made his Olympic debut on the American ski team in Slalom as well as Downhill and Super G, earning third in Super G and 21st in Downhill with a combined score of 11. In 2014, he earned second in Super G, but did not place in slalom or downhill. Now, at 31 years old, he’s competing for America in Alpine Skiing for the third time, hopefully securing a third podium win with a gold medal.

Anthony Granato is the head coach for America’s men’s team in his third Olympic appearance. He attended Northwood from for four years, graduating in the class of ‘83, and in the yearbook dedications it states “Tony Granato leaves Craig C. his black sweater; Shoppy, a gift certificate to MacDonalds; Holmsey, a trip to the flight deck showers, Guido, an alarm clock; Mike Doyle, a pass (the first one) and the ceiling; to Dori, he leaves an unending relationship with Danny and an unending friendship with himself.” Along with this, he was voted most likely to succeed, and with 3 Olympics under his belt, it’s safe to say the vote was correct. After graduating, he attended the University of Wisconsin from ‘84-’89. He had an impressive hockey career there, totaling with 100 goals and 220 points in 151 games, and in 1987, he was named the Western Collegiate Hockey Associations Student-Athlete of the Year. While in school, he competed in two IIHF World Junior Championships in ‘83 and ‘84, and then in the World Championships from ‘85-’87.

After college, he skated for three different NHL teams, including the New York Rangers (1988-90), Los Angeles Kings (1990-96), and San Jose Sharks (1996-01), and played for America in the 1991 Canada Cup. In his 1988-89 season with the Rangers, he led the team in goals scored with 36, which still stands as the team record for goals by a rookie. A brain injury in the 1995-96 season nearly forced him to retire, but he returned after much speculation about his future, and was even named an NHL All-Star for the following 1996-97 season. The same year, he received the Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy, awarded annually to the NHL player who “best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship and dedication to hockey.” He was a player on the 1998 Winter Olympics while he was with the Sharks, and retired in 2001 after 13 years in the NHL. He became the assistant and eventually head coach for Colorado Avalanche from ‘03 to ‘09, and then went to coach to Penguins from 2009-2014 as an assistant coach. He helped lead the Penguins to four consecutive playoff appearances, and coached the forwards to an NHL-best 3.38 goal-per-game average during the 2012-13 season. He assistant coached the Detroit Red Wings from 2014, when he joined the Olympic men’s team as an assistant coach, to 2016, then left to take a coaching position at his Alma Mater, University of Wisconsin, where he is currently coaching the men’s ice hockey team. Twin brothers Jesper and Alexei Peltonen, both class of 2017, graduated last year and will be playing D1 hockey at University of Wisconsin under Tony Granato, who played with their father. This year, he will be the head coach for the 2018 Olympic Men’s team, having already attended the games as a player and assistant coach for Team USA.

Kevin Drury is a 29 year old Canadian skier from Toronto, Ontario, where he was born and still lives. His discipline is Ski Cross, a freestyle event in which four skiers race across a course that includes natural terrain and artificial obstacles at the same time. He graduated class of ‘06, then attended the University of Vermont in the class of ‘12.

While there in 2011, he was a runner-up in the giant slalom at the NCAA national championships and a First Team All-American in the slalom, earning NCAA All – American Second Team honors for Slalom and Giant Slalom. Afterwards, he continued ski racing professionally, and first represented Canada internationally in 2012 in Norway – America cup events, and though he did not compete with them the next couple of years, he returned to the Canada Ski Cross team for the 2016, 2017, and 2018 world cups, placing 4th, 5th, and 10th in ‘16, 4th and 6th in ‘17, and 4th in 2018. This is his first Olympics, and he will be representing Canada in Ski Cross Freestyle skiing, hopefully providing fierce competition for Weibrecht’s side of the border.

Michael Testwuide is a 31 year old hockey player from Vail, Colorado, and has been playing for almost all his life. He attended Northwood from ‘02-’03 before being drafted to the Waterloo Blackhawks. He played for them for two years before leaving to attend Colorado college, and graduated in the class of 2010.

For the next four years, he played for the AHL for the Adirondack Phantoms and Abbotsford Heat, and then shockingly chose to leave America to play for the South Korean professional league in 2014. When asked by ESPN’s Emily Kaplan why he chose this, he stated “I wasn’t really enjoying the American League life. I fell into a role that I didn’t really enjoy. They wanted me to fight. I wasn’t having as much fun with hockey anymore.” He signed with Anyang Halla, based 12 miles south of Seoul, and still plays for them. He has since become a Korean citizen, and will be competing for the Korean team in his first Olympics this year as the only American on the team. He told ESPN what that’s like, explaining “Putting the Team Korea jersey on for the first time, it was like, ‘What am I doing? Am I betraying my country? Am I a traitor?’ Then you look at it like a cool opportunity. Something you can’t really script. The Olympics were never really on my radar. I was never in that league. NHL All-Stars, that’s who usually goes to the Olympics. I never made the NHL, so that was out of my realm. But for this to actually come to fruition… I played with these guys for five years. We’ve become like a brotherhood, a big family. We’ve battled together. It’s not about being American or Korean or Canadian. When we’re on the ice, we’re all Korean.”

Since South Korea landed the 2018 Olympics, the country has made a commitment to hockey, and has recruited him and six Canadians to bolster their roster to become a fierce competitor in this year’s competition. Their enthusiasm and support for the sport has encouraged people to sign up for the sport, and now more than 2,000 South Koreans are registered to play hockey, a record number.

Will Rhoads is a 21 year old ski jumper Born in Concord, New Hampshire, and living in Park City, Utah. He attended Northwood in the 2011-2012 year as a member of the Junior Class. He moved to Park City after that year, graduating from Park City High School in the class of ‘13. He was a member of five Junior National Teams and the winner of the the Junior 1 class at the 2012 USSA Junior Nationals in Park City. He is currently attending DeVry University.

He competed in 5 Federation Internationale de Ski, or FIS, cups from ‘13-’14, and has participated in 4 Continental Cups from ‘15 and ‘16. He came third in the US National Championships in Lake Placid in October of 2014 and first in the Springer Tournee in Park City, Utah. His longest jump is 207 meters, which he scored at the Planica world finals in March 2017, and he came seventh in the world cup skiing flying team event in Vikersund, Norway, that same month. He placed 7th in the 2015 World Championships in 2015, and 11th in the 2017 championships. This year, he will be jumping for America in his first Olympic debut.